Distribution of specific apolipoproteins determined by immunoblotting of baboon lipoproteins resolved by polyacrylamide gradient gel electrophoresis.

A method for the quantitative assessment of apolipoprotein distributions among baboon serum lipoproteins is described. The method combines the precise and reproducible separation of lipoproteins by polyacrylamide gradient gel electrophoresis with the specificity of immunoblotting. The method permits the measurement of distributions for any apolipoprotein for which there are antibodies available. Radioactive secondary antibodies are used to expose X-ray film, and distributions are determined by densitometry. Absorbance is linearly related to both antigen and antibody concentrations. The method is reproducible, with the mean coefficient of variation calculated to be 0.118, and has a high repeatability (r2 = 0.97). The immunoblotting method can be employed to measure the fine details of lipoprotein phenotypes as they are influenced by genotype and environment.